Thanks to Neil for lugging these two sets over to Mikey's bash. Also big thumbs up and thanks to David for giving them room in his tiny little car and delivering them to my door last night.

I have updated the place holders on the main sites collection blog pages ( see below) and you expect to find the repairs taking place on the E-CTV forum for those that are interested in their journey back to life.

I shall be following progress. I repaired very few Thorn CTV's, so my knowledge is nil, we sold a few Thorn B/W TV's in tbe 60's and 70's and to be honest we were not that impressed with them so when colour came out we steered clear. Good or bad decision, who knows, too late now.

One thing I can say about the Thorn B/W sets is that they were always easy to repair, personal view was performance and reliability were not as good as the Bush range. No doubt others had a different experience.

The Pye/Ekco B/W range which we had were not that brilliant from around 1966 onwards until the S/S 169 chassis came out. Still they paid the bills.

A nice pair of sets Chris! It's a long time since I worked on an 8800 . That's one of the nicest examples I have seen, most were in a drab plastic cabinet or if 26" a chipboard and Fablon one!I have a brand new convergence panel for one somewhere if you need any pots or coils.

I am pleased with the set I got from Neil, an 8500, it too has smoked a few! It's only got as far as the hall at the moment but once I have given it a clean I will get it on the bench and report progress if any!First I need to get a flyback tuning cap for it. I'm not risking the tube neck with the original!

I had a look at the CVC5 at the NVCF yesterday. £95 wasn't a bad price (IMHO) when you take in to account buying one elsewhere and having to fetch it. I resisted as I really do have enough tellies. I noticed it there at the end so it looks as if everyone else felt the same. What I really had to resist was a couple of cheap KB D/S hand wires mono sets, VC4/VC52 Ilk.. Luckily by the time I had given in to temptation they had both sold! I will follow progress with interest!Rich

I don't think many if any were sold new The only ones I saw were ex rental. I avoided them as they were mostly massive console sets and had been filled with faulty panels/modules.I had a go at a few that came in as chargeable repairs, There was an exrental dealer in town that sold allsorts, It could have been an OTV branch. They sold them cheaply and didn't want to know once the sets were out of the guarantee which wasn't very long to start with.They had some nasty little thick film packages in them which along with the fact that they were so unfamiliar made repairs long winded and not really profitable. I don't know what the Radio rentals engineers thought of them ,when you do lots have the service info and parts handy they probably presented a less daunting prospect.Somewhere I have a picture of the back of my TV shop during the late 1980's there is a 26" 4000 on it's end by the bins.I have lost the picture I had of the pile of scrap sets out the back in the early 80's there was about 5 or 6 dual standard GECs. a 22" G6 with no tube (as re-gunners would buy "square" glass) and dual standard black and white sets that we scrapped on sight. Every tube had been necked to stop them appearing in the local furniture auction up the road, it seems the dustman had an outlet for anything that looked OK...I would like to say that I would like to see a 4000 again but the truth is I wouldn't ! Good luck if you find one!Rich.P.S if you do get one I do Have a spare brick from the A774 "if all else fails" tool kit... Rich.

The HMV 2725: This was one of the most popular rental sets, I couldn't get enough of them. It was that real wood cabinet the customers liked. The 2725 was available from late 1975 to 1977 when the agreement with EMI ended with Thorn CE. The story has been told before, Thorn Consumer Electronics did not own the HMV and Marconi brand names, these were licenced to Thorn over a twenty-one year period.

The HMV 2726: This was an impressive looking console set which had an ultrasonic remote control system. I did have one on rental and I looked after a privately owned set. The truth is the sets weren't too bad, good pictures as well. I've still have a few spares for the 4000 series chassis, there might even be a service manual somewhere in the shop.

Getting back to the 2725. There was an earlier similar looking set which was fitted with the 3500 series chassis.Look out for the mono sets with the same styling cues. Also the 17" HMV colour set which has the 8000 chassis.

Although not as good looking as the HMV 2725 I thought I'd give the Ultra 6714 some mention. I didn't have any 6714 sets on rental but I did have a similar looking Marconi version instead, bought from wholesalers. The Marconi 4714 cabinet was darker.

Till Eulenspiegel wrote:thought I'd give the Ultra 6714 some mention. I didn't have any 6714 sets on rental but I did have a similar looking Marconi version instead, bought from wholesalers. The Marconi 4714 cabinet was darker.

That would have been the 4714 (taken from main website brochure ) As you say, same set just different cabinet finish and control fascia. That's all it came down to in the end, just badge engineering and control layout presentation.

Till Eulenspiegel wrote:Getting back to the 2725, look out for the mono sets with the same styling cues. Till Eulenspiegel.

Indeed, as I mentioned in 2725 blog, the cabinet was to be found on many sets ( with slight modifications) and even B&W. Here is an example of the 20" HMV 2802 :1500 chassis version.

what chassis was it based on ? was it just a modified 3500 ? , was it export only?

Totally different to the 3000 and as far as I've been told most went export.

Photo of the only chassis and known set below. This was in Mikey;s collection, sadly the set no longer exists having apparently met its demise in a flood. So there really are now none known to have survived in the CTV communtity unless someone knows differently?

As can be seen it is more akin to the 8000/9000 series, than the 3000/3500

If a 4000 ever turned up on e-bay expect it to fetch serious money as there are a few avid Thorn fans all seeking this incredibly rare chassis.

The signal board/s do look a bit like the early forerunner of the later "twin panel" 9K series, not sure what to make of the rest of it though, while clearly Thorn it is not a chassis I can ever remember seeing.

Thorn always were past masters at throwing an "odd ball" into the mix.

I'm lucky to own a HMV 2714 same as a 2704 both use the Mazda A55X crt. and same cabinet. HMV 2704 uses a 3000 chassis and 2714 uses the 3000 mk2 chassis. I also own two HMV 2715 FROM 1974 one of them is called Mr Rusty.

I remember i bought a few 4000's ex rental they were dirt cheap as nobody wanted them, after i had finally got them going and sold them i found out why! Terrible sets nothing but bother i never bought any more.

steve1010 wrote:I remember i bought a few 4000's ex rental they were dirt cheap as nobody wanted them, after i had finally got them going and sold them i found out why! Terrible sets nothing but bother i never bought any more.

These set's are best forgotten.

You do understand that's a written invitation to Chris to do the exact opposite?

I would love to be able to do battle with one again, I really liked the convergence board with it's edge wheel controls. The board was fitted with a long cable that could be unwound and brought round to the front of the set, even static convergence could be carried out using it. Because of the narrow neck CRT very good results for a delta gun could be achieved.

There was an IC on the power/line board which used to cause various faults, TCE100P if my memory serves me right?